The Classical World

This one-volume history runs from Homeric epic to the reign of the emperor Hadrian. Lane Fox gives most space to classical Athens and to Rome from Julius Caesar through Augustus, while also covering archaic Greece, the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, Philip and Alexander, the Hellenistic kingdoms, the Roman Republic's wars and civil wars, and the early imperial order. Recurring themes are freedom, justice, and luxury. Figures include Pericles, Socrates, Cicero, Caesar, and Hadrian as a classically minded reader of the past. The book is a narrative political and cultural history, not a handbook of archaeology.

Bound in dark blue buckram with an inset label showing a gilt printed marble relief from Hadrian’s Villa near Tivoli, 117-8 AD. Black slipcase.